Surface 3 - How to Clean Install Windows 10

Looks like there is a typo - the directions say to download Surface firmware Surface3_150623.msi. However, on the next screen it states this is for Windows 8. Not completely sure which is the correct file but guessing for a US Surface 3 it would be: Surface3_US1_Win10_150724_2.msi

Hi,

Followed this guide but my Surface 3 couldn't able to boot from USB drive,  had tried with 02 different USB drive.

However, it did boot from USB if I go to Settings - Update & Security - Recovery - Advanced Startup - Boot from a disk (ex: USB or DVD) or device (UEFI only), and this is the only way to clean install W10 on my Surface 3.

Is my Surface 3 UEFI firmware have problem?

Ive tried Surface3_NAG_Win10_150724_2.msi, Surface3_ROW_Win10_150724_3.msi & Surface3_US1_Win10_150724_2.msi to no avail.  All of them say something like "this is not a [blah blah] device.".  Im now trying Surface3_Win10_150723_0.zip & Surface3_Win8x_150623_2.msi.

I am able to clean install Win10 Pro on my Surface 3 (purchased at a Microsoft store), but none of the important drivers (network, touchscreen etc etc) work.

This is frustrating, at best.

OK, so in the end what I did (successfully) was to unzip Surface3_Win10_150723_0.zip, and then use device manager to "update driver" for each and every unknown device listed. very time consuming and tedious.

There's gotta be a better way!

I didnt want to install using win8 drivers so didnt try it.

One other tip I will share is that the touchscreen (and I think keyboard?) wont work until you plug an old fashioned mouse into the USB port, and then you dont need the mouse plugged in anymore.  Was stumped on that one until I tried it on a whim.

I hope this helps somebody else further down the line...

Oh, one other suggestion to the original poster - you have two different files referenced. In one place you say download Surface3_150623.msi, which I dont think exists anymore, and then in another you say Surface3_US1_Win10_150724_2.msi, which didnt work for me.

Yep, didn't work for me neither. I ended up getting stuck in Windows 10 purgatory without being able to install any firmware to operate the device. I had thought perhaps I deleted one too many partitions during the upgrade process and therefore the device would not recognize itself.

So I eventually called Microsoft support, which were very helpful and professional. With their help downloaded a Surface 8.1 image to a USB flash drive and used that to get back to 8.1. Then after downloading all the updates upgraded back to Windows 10 using Microsoft's media creation tool following the advice of the Surface support staff upgrading within windows 8.1 instead of booting into a flash drive. Its been working great the last week.

Thanks for correcting.

It appears theres no .msi option for win10 at the moment, only a .zip file.  I believe in this case you gotta go down the "unknown device" list in device manager and "update driver" for each individual item in the tree.  Painful, but works.

Would be much nicer to have an MSI that does it automagically for you :-)

Because it simplistically lists everything as unknown device, no way to accurately guess which one is the wifi device :-)

Thanks again for original article -\

Joe